Markdownify MCP

MCP servers

MCP server that converts PDFs, Office docs, images, audio, YouTube, and web pages into Markdown for agents.

by Zach Caceres (zcaceres)zcaceres/markdownify-mcp

Stars3k

Forks255

Watchers10

Open issues31

LicenseMIT

Last push27 days ago

Install

install

$ git clone https://github.com/zcaceres/markdownify-mcp && cd markdownify-mcp && bun install && bun run build

Update

update

$ git pull && bun install && bun run build

No npm/npx package — pull the repo and rebuild dist/index.js, then restart your MCP client.

When to use it

You want an agent to read PDFs, DOCX/XLSX/PPTX, or images and get clean Markdown instead of raw bytes.
You need YouTube transcripts or audio transcription pulled into a chat as text.
You want to feed web pages or Bing search results to a model as Markdown context.
You need a local, path-restricted (MD_ALLOWED_PATHS) document-to-Markdown pipeline inside Claude Code or Claude Desktop.

Commands & flags

pdf-to-markdown: Convert a PDF file into Markdown text.
docx-to-markdown: Convert a Word .docx document into Markdown.
xlsx-to-markdown / pptx-to-markdown: Convert Excel sheets or PowerPoint decks into Markdown.
youtube-to-markdown: Fetch a YouTube video's transcript as Markdown.
audio-to-markdown: Transcribe an audio file into Markdown text.
webpage-to-markdown / bing-search-to-markdown: Convert a web page or Bing search results into Markdown.

How to use it

This is an MCP server, not a skill/plugin. There is no npm package — clone and build it, then register the built entrypoint with your MCP client.

git clone https://github.com/zcaceres/markdownify-mcp
cd markdownify-mcp
bun install
bun run build

bun install also creates a Python virtual environment and installs markitdown. Register the build in your client config (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "markdownify": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["{ABSOLUTE PATH}/markdownify-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Optionally restrict file access and point at external binaries via env vars: MD_ALLOWED_PATHS, MARKITDOWN_PATH, REPOMIX_PATH. A Dockerfile is included:

docker build -t markdownify-mcp .
docker run --rm -i -v "$HOME/Documents:/data:ro" -e MD_ALLOWED_PATHS=/data markdownify-mcp

Why it earns its place

One server gives an agent ten conversion tools (PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, images, audio, YouTube, Bing, web pages, local files) all normalized to Markdown — the format LLMs read best. It is a widely-adopted reference MCP (~2.8k stars) from zcaceres, a prolific MCP/tooling author, and adds path-allowlist security via MD_ALLOWED_PATHS plus a ready Dockerfile, making it safe to expose document ingestion to a model.

Try it

claude

> Use markdownify to convert ~/Documents/contract.pdf to Markdown and summarize the key obligations.